1. The Age of Exploration

2. Essential Questions
What kinds of new knowledge and technical accomplishments made it possible for Europeans to undertake great journeys of oceanic exploration in the 1400s?
How and why did Europeans benefit in unique ways in their overseas explorations from the accomplishments of other civilizations?
What motives did Europeans have for undertaking what were expensive and enormously risky overseas ventures?
Why was it that Portugal and Spain, of all the European nations, led the way in the early phases of the Age of Exploration?
Why were the Dutch, English, and French able to take the lead later in overseas imperial expansion?
Why was the “Columbian Exchange” such a turning point in so many ways in world history, and why was it so much more beneficial for the Eastern Hemisphere than for the Western Hemisphere?

3. The Historical Setting for Exploration
Europe wanted trade
World divided into independent spheres
Limited previous contact with the Americas had occurred
Vikings
The end of the Middle Ages had afforded the Europeans numerous opportunities to interact and trade with Asia. Contacts made as a result of the Crusades demonstrated to the Europeans some of the many benefits they could gain by trading with both the Near and Far East. Europeans developed a taste for the goods that could be found in the East, but overland trade routes were costly and required an enormous amount of time.
There were several distinct spheres that were acknowledged by the end of the late Middle Ages— Europe, the Muslim world (including North Africa), and Asia. While each of these was seen as independent of the others, much contact and interaction occurred between these spheres.
During the Middle Ages, the Vikings probably discovered the New World—long before Christopher Columbus set sail. Exploration occurred under such Viking explorers and settlers as Eric the Red and Leif Ericson, and they probably did reach the Western Hemisphere, which resulted in the establishment of a short-lived settlement in Newfoundland known as “Vinland.”
There are also some who suggest that the Chinese may have reached the coast of America. Marco Polo returned to Europe with tales that China could be reached by water.
Vikings

4. Renaissance Ideas That Influenced Exploration
Most educated men believed that the world was round
There were certainly stories of other lands, but they were not focused on the Western Hemisphere
Exploration was partially fueled by the developing ideas of the Renaissance that had been discussed since the late Middle Ages.
While most educated Renaissance humanists believed that the world was round, there was little real understanding of the size of the circumference of the earth, nor any reason to believe that a separate world existed in the Western Hemisphere.
Stories of the mythical Christian king Prester John who purportedly lived in Africa or Asia, the lost continent of Atlantis, and a Japanese island called “Cipangu” all enticed Europeans to embark upon voyages of exploration. While these stories may have motivated some early explorers, there was no real sense that a new world would be discovered.

5. Economic Developments
Trade routes expanded
Europeans developed a taste for Asian goods
The development of banking
As the feudal era came to a close in most regions of Europe, several significant economic developments occurred that helped contribute to the developing ideas and motives of exploration.
Although feudalism had resulted in a decentralized environment, limited trade had occurred between the villages and manors along traditional and emerging trade routes. Italian ships sailed the Mediterranean to participate in trade with Asia, and northern traders sailed between the English and Baltic coasts and France, Germany and the Low Countries. Finally, an important north-south trade route developed between the Italian city-states and Northern Europe. This route included both sea lanes and a land route over the Alps. Sea lanes came to play an increasingly important role because overland trade was slow and expensive.
Europeans desired many things from the East. They enjoyed silk and porcelain from China and they desired the many exotic spices that could be found in the East—spices like cinnamon, cloves, pepper, and nutmeg. However, the difficulty of transport along overland routes made acquiring these goods costly and troublesome.
The growth of commerce in the late Middle Ages made it impossible to continue the barter system and new coins were minted, such as the Florentine florin. The increased use of money created a demand for banks, whose job originally was to exchange one set of coined money for another. Later, banks created a place for people to store their acquired wealth, and some banks were established to create a system to loan money to people, including monarchs.
The Royal Exchange, London

6. New Technology: Ships Caravels Ship technology Armaments Caravel
Caravels were round-hulled ships that could carry heavy armaments. They were smaller, shallow- draft ships that were capable of handling oceanic travel.
Europeans used different sorts of technology that had been developed in the preceding centuries to improve the sustainability and maneuverability of their ships. This included the incorporation of the sternpost rudder (which had diffused from China) and the use of both the square and lateen sails (which were triangular in shape). These two types of sails allowed maritime explorers to navigate the oceans regardless of the winds’ direction.
Using gunpowder developed by the Chinese and improved metallurgy, the Europeans developed cannons and guns. These technologies gave the Europeans an absolute military advantage (even though the weapons were often inaccurate) in many of the places to which they traveled and, subsequently, conquered. Guns were mounted on the deck, as well as fired through holes cut into the sides of the ships.
Caravel

7. New Technology: Navigation
Astrolabe
Compass
Practical knowledge of winds and currents
The astrolabe was a spin-off of an ancient maritime tool that had been used by the Greeks. The tool was used to calculate latitude by computing the distance of the sun or pole star and the horizon. The Europeans later adapted this technology to create the cross staff and back staff, which accomplished a similar task but were easier to use. The computation of latitude was critical in aiding European exploration.
The compass was also a Chinese innovation that had diffused throughout the Eurasian world, and the Europeans used it as one of their most critical navigational tools. The astrolabe was of limited use, particularly if the day was cloudy, and the magnetic compass provided a reliable alternative. While some viewed the compass superstitiously because of its seemingly magical powers, the compass became a critically important tool in exploration since it always provided the explorer with a reliable sense of direction.
These and other discoveries allowed the Europeans to develop a deeper understanding of the winds and currents of both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They were able to take advantage of trade winds on both sides of the equator and were able to plan out their voyages to allow them to take advantage of different types of dependable winds, including the monsoons and trade winds.
Astrolabe

8. Cartography: Early and Medieval Maps
Discovering a superior route to the East for trade required significant map work, for much of the world’s existing cartography hindered explorers’ abilities to discover a water route. If explorers were to know where they were, they needed to be able to pinpoint their location on a map, using a grid of some sort (latitude and longitude) to ascertain their position. At the beginning of the age of exploration, there were several significant types of world maps.
The Ptolemaic map was generated by Claudius Ptolemy in the second century. The map on this slide depicts Ptolemy’s world in detail, showing Europe, Northern Africa, the Middle East, and some places in Asia in relatively accurate detail; it also recognizes that there were possible areas that lay beyond the known land—terra incognita. Although it did note some unknown lands, the map also identified more than 8000 places in the world that could be depicted in a conical projection. While this map recognized the interconnectedness of the known world, it also indicated that the Indian Ocean was a lake, suggesting that an all-water route to the East was impossible. Another weakness of this map was that it incorrectly computed the circumference of the globe as smaller than it was and noted that China was larger than it actually was.
The Jerusalem map was not a map for navigational purposes or to help an explorer find their location on the globe, but was instead essentially a religious document, for Jerusalem was the focus of the map and the other known parts of the world were drawn in a representative fashion around Jerusalem. The map itself depicted the world as flat (even though few believed that it was truly flat), with Jerusalem at the top of the map. This “map” made a religious statement about the centrality of Jerusalem and did not provide the European explorers with any navigational aid.
Ptolemaic map
Jerusalem maps
Mappa Mundi

9. Late Medieval and Renaissance Cartography
The Portolan map was intended for practical use and contained specific landmarks along European and Mediterranean coasts that were accurately noted so that one could follow them with a compass. This map enabled sailors to navigate the waters more safely. The map depicted major waterways and harbors, and the maps contained lines that connected the harbors. These lines were important because it showed sailors safe routes that could be sailed by using a compass. The weakness of these maps lay in the fact that since they were mainly used for water navigation, they contained very little information about interior land locations.
Fra Mauro’s map was the most famous map in the 15th century. Its shape was round like the Jerusalem map, but Fra Mauro added a great deal of information that gave the map credibility. Perhaps most important was the fact that the map noted that Africa could be circumnavigated and the Indian Ocean reached by a water route.
In 1492, Behaim constructed a globe that indicated that one could get to China by sailing west across the Atlantic. The globe was based on the Ptolemaic map and indicated that there was a single ocean separating Europe and Asia in the West. Although inaccurate (both the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean lay between Europe and Asia), the globe did inspire explorers, although Columbus’s discovery of the New World in the same year that the globe was created proved that his Behaim was incorrect.
The Ptolemaic map experienced a resurgence during the Renaissance, as ancient texts were reexamined and the use of the printing press resulted in the dissemination of copies of this map. Although the weaknesses mentioned earlier continued to be propagated, Ptolemy’s miscalculation of the circumference of the globe actually aided exploration, for it convinced explorers (like Columbus) that sailing around the globe was much less of a Herculean task than it really was.
By the mid-15th century, maps began to change from previous maps, for they indicated that a water route around Africa might be possible. This had yet to be substantiated by European explorers, but rumors abounded.
Portolan map
Fra Mauro’s map

10. Cartography and Projection
Hipparchus and Ptolemy
Mercator
It became evident that cartographers could take advantage of printing technology to make more maps available. The problem, however, concerned the manner in which these maps could be portrayed. Cartographers struggled with projection. How could one take a round globe and accurately depict it on a flat surface?
Hipparchus wrestled with the issue of projection and created the system of longitude and latitude in the second century CE, and Ptolemy noted the Prime Meridian (0 degrees longitude).
In 1569, Gerardus Mercator created a map that was specifically designed as a navigational tool. In creating his system, Mercator elongated the lines of longitude as they neared the poles in order to create a matching scale of longitude and latitude, making it possible to plot a compass course at the same angle anywhere on the map. Although the map may make certain places along the equator seem out of proportion to other places, the practicality of this projection is seen in the fact that this projection is still used on some marine charts today. Additionally, Mercator created a series of maps that compared the recent changes in cartography with earlier maps, such as Ptolemy’s.